My mother-by-grace (“by-grace” is what I call my in-laws. For each and every one of them is far from family due to law. No, we are family, through and through, due to keenly loving each other. It is a blessing that I hold with the utmost value and extensive gratitude) was an extraordinary woman.

All of 5 ft tall, she was full of sass, spunk and an excellent, albeit, unique sense of style. Anyone that met her…LOVED her. If there was a party being thrown, she was invited, for she brought the life. Typically introducing herself as Sophia or Zsa Zsa (which is what we all came to call her since she refused to be called grandma) loved the spot light and charmed and entertained with the best of them. If you were a man in your fifties or younger, had an ounce of good looks and a bit of wit, you would have been her arm candy for the evening. For she’d much rather rely on a steady arm than her cane. And until the day she passed, at 90, was the best darn playmate my daughter ever had (those two together…what a pair!!!)

Zsa Zsa, unapologetically, exhibited how life and love could and should be lived WIDE OPEN and FULL OUT ON!

Now I am not trying to paint a picture of a saint.

Was she adorable? Yes.

Loving? Oh my heck yes!

Funny? To the nth degree.

But she was no saint and had a couple of quirks to prove it.

One of those quirks being that she was highly superstitious.

She had lucky and unlucky numbers. Even had an unlucky color…purple, of all things. If she spilt olive oil, she’d dab a bit behind her ear. Salt…threw some over the shoulder. The gift of a wallet or a purse also came with money. Don’t even think about putting your hat (shoes, hangers, pretty much anything…) on the bed for you’d see just how spry she was as she hastily got the object moved to the dresser or nightstand. If she walked out one door to leave then that was certainly the door she’d walk back through when she returned. And heaven forbid making a toast with water! Even if you’re 8, she’d put a drop of wine in it, for luck sake.

So when one of her favorite pieces, a full length mirror that was her mothers, shattered. Leaving behind only a gode gold leaf frame. I wondered how she would have handled it…would she have concerned herself with a superstition of seven years of bad luck? Would she have cleaned up the mess and discarded the bulky frame? Or would she have done as I did…

creating a treasured piece that reminds us of her daily?

I certainly hope that it would have been the latter.

Undoubtedly once she saw all the precious ways this frame of hers has been used (bridal shower, retirement party, leaned against a wall in our home with favorite quotes…) any superstition that may have lingered would have been erased.

Back, about a 113 years ago…loooonnng before I married her son. Zsa Zsa had a 1 in 10 chance to win a million dollars in a FL state lotto draw. She, the 9 others and their families were wined and dined for a weekend in Miami. On the last night they were treated to a view of the city from a yacht. Where 10 color balls, at random, were to be pulled. Each ball held a value from ten thousand to one millon dollars. The ten contestants were given a cordinating color ball. The amounts awarded would given according to which order their balls were pulled. The longer the ball was in the pool the better the payout…1st $10,000.00 winner, 2nd $50,000.00 winner and so on.

Zsa Zsa’s ball was the first one outta the shoot…
Can you guess what color her ball was???
Poor purple never stood a chance after that.

A look back

All wrapped up, pretty like

All wrapped up, pretty like

What’s in a name?

William Shakespeare had a real knack with names~ creating some of the most memorable… Hamlet, Viola, Beatrice, Lady Macbeth, Titania and of course Romeo and his dear Juliet. Wish I had his talent for such because when it came to deciding on a name for this blog I tortured myself for weeks with ideas. Y’all the names I was considering ran the gamut~ from Simply Be to In His Image, Tongue & Cheek, all the way to Simply Southern Sass.

Each were fittin’ but none fit perfectly. I mean seriously I can rarely simply be. In fact it takes a great deal of efforting on my part to just BE. Nor could three simple words like Simply Southern Sass, adequately describe all that I am… yes, I am southern, yes, I am sassy but dang if I and hopfully this blog are not so much more!

As y’all will find in the days, weeks, months, and by grace… years to come, the gal writing this blog believes anything and everything is possible and feels most confident that she can do ALL that she desires. However in just trying to pick the title I came to discover that while believing in infinite possiblities and the blessings that belief holds it can also play out as a curse, causing one (me) to question ALL possibilities never quite settling on one. The one.

Then low and behold one night while laying in bed I got a silly text from a dear friend, so silly in fact only the most eloquent of responds would suffice…